Peeling off the slightly damp, baggy, faded orange T-shirt after the last set of repetitions I remembered again its origin. It was a long anticipated trip to Myrtle Beach with 8-10 other guys and gals. We had come from all parts of the country with the common point being two brothers; one of whom drove across the country from Vegas with his former dancer gal in his new white convertible ‘vette. The other brother part of my town’s group. While they resembled each other little physically their mannerisms clearly gave them away.
We were in a pattern of heading out as a single group to start each night and letting things move on from there. Two nights I still remember many years later. One, we were in a club and a gal came over to our table, introduced herself as Bambi and said if there was anything–anything at all–that she could get or do for us that evening we can call for her by name. David, without so much as a pause stepped in with, “Thanks Bambi, my name’s Thor and I think we’re doing fine for now; we’ll let you know.” It was a –you had to be there– moment.
The other night we were in a long, narrow club with a bar running the length of the room. I was wearing a green T from Barry-O’s in Omaha and eventually a group of guys with whom we were mingling made a comment about the shirt. As I recall the name of one fella was Barry and the shirt had some quip on it he liked. He asked how much for the shirt, one thing led to another and before long we were pulling off and trading T’s in the middle of the bar–plus an extra $20 I charged him. My take included the orange name-brand T with the word S U M M E R screened in mid-sized lettering on the front. I quickly realized it was too big; as a result for all these years it has been relegated to being a night-shirt worn by gals and occasionally it makes it to the gym.
Another memorable night of the trip included several hours with all of us in the hotel rooms of all things. We sat in the rooms knocking back yet another haul of moderately expensive alcohol, mesmerized by the TV. It seemed rather surreal; the nonstop coverage, something relatively new at the time, of endless storms and rising midwest flood-waters. We were in pre-mobile phone, pre-WWW era and the phones in our two rooms were the only way to connect with home. I maintained minimal contact with my roommate as he was my ride from the airport. He was in one of his cycles at the time—a little short on cash and long on drink; so I needed to be sure he had the most current airline information given the relentless storms.
While the scenes on TV as reported by Brokaw, Rather, and others would later make history they eventually blurred into the sounds of the thump-thump-thumps of the car stereos as they ramped up their nightly cruising ritual mere feet outside our beachfront doors. Another night beckoned and would not be interrupted for much longer, even by the history-in-the-making 1993 midwest floods.
wag more – bark less
AniMal